Remote-control models face off in the Extreme Flight Championships.

“That’s why I hope Frank will open up the regulations for the XFC,” says Chris Hinson, the owner of Extreme Flight RC, which sells a variety of airplane models. The son of a U.S. Navy P-3 Orion pilot, Hinson has been around airplanes since he was a child, and he has devoted his adult life to the RC industry. “We’ve come full circle,” he says. “We started out emulating full-scale airplanes. But now that top aerobatic pilots are following us, why can’t we take the lead and expand the boundaries?”

Sounds like a plan. Can the Mega-Extreme Flying Championships be far away?

Longtime contributor Preston Lerner last wrote for the magazine about the Sidewinder air-to-air missile (Oct./Nov. 2010). Photographer Mark Fadely enjoys making inflight images of everything from radiocontrol aircraft to birds.